Increasingly archives and libraries are offered collections and holdings which are composed of multimedia material -- meaning the estates include documents in a wide variety of media or carriers: written documents, photographs, audio recordings, video, film, etc. It is customary that such holdings remain closed, but there is scarcely an institution which can handle all forms of documents and recordings in a competent manner. Therefore, various centers of competence should join and collaborate in
dealing with such holdings. That means the content would be split according to the different media, and handled and archived by the relevant experts. With the newest communication methods, holdings can be recreated "virtually" and displayed again to the users. A further possibility is offered by secure online access to the contents to the holdings at the different participating archives.